Although the UDA declared ceasefires in 1994 and 2003, subsequent reports by Northern Ireland’s paramilitary watchdog, the Independent Monitoring Commission, found that the UDA continued to be involved in paramilitary activities, and that its members – including senior members – were involved in drug dealing, extortion, counterfeiting, money laundering and robbery.

Facing calls for his resignation and censure, McCoubrey insisted that he “did not know masked men would appear,” but that if he “had known what was going to happen,” he “wouldn’t have been on that stage.”

In 2014, the party selected ex-UDA prisoner Sam “Chalky” White as candidate to run in local government elections in Belfast. The former gunman was jailed for seven years in 1980 for robbing an east Belfast taxi office, and served his time on the UDA wing of the notorious Maze prison.